by Christine Hanrahan How time flies. Here it is, early September, with all the signs of approaching autumn now firmly in place. The old field is full of asters and goldenrods, the latter already losing their bloom. Fruit is heavy on the vine and tree, some of the sumacs are turning vivid red, and of [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Mid-afternoon at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden, August 14th. A sunny and pleasant afternoon to be looking for things to photograph for the PBase Blog. My first sighting was of the Sphex ichneumoneus, the Great Golden Digger as it is sometimes called, nectaring on swamp milkweed. Its counterpart, the Great Black Digger, S. [...]
Ruby-throated Hummingbird nectaring at cardinal flowers by Christine Hanrahan You can certainly see that summer is pushing on. Goldenrod is blooming, New England Asters are starting to flower, Evening Primroses are finishing up, Solanum is fruiting, many grasses are in seed - food for wildlife is abundant. Families of Grey Catbirds, Red-eyed Vireos, [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Despite coolish temperatures and grey skies, there was much to see at the garden today. House Wrens busy feeding young Birds are VERY active feeding their young. I watched a pair of house wrens constantly carrying food to their nest. Meanwhile, a male Common Yellowthroat sounded the alert when I [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Tuesday afternoon at the garden, June 4th, and a lovely day to be wandering through the FWG. Mating pair of silvery blue butterflies Silvery blue butterflies were fluttering around in many locations, including this mating pair near the new woods. Common ringlets were indeed common that day but hard to [...]
By Ted Farnworth I gave the dandelion digger a test run on the north face of the ravine to see if it would work against DSV in a real-life situation. The plot where I have been focusing my attention this year is actually starting to look like DSV is not taking over as it has [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Dodging the rain showers and gusty winds, I spent several hours walking around the garden looking for birds, plants, insects... Naturally, the latter were scarce and had to be looked for under leaves, huddled against stems and branches, seeking shelter from the rainy weather. I did see a pretty common spring moth [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Black Walnut in bloom It was a blustery, coolish day at the garden, but as always, there was much to see. Starting with birds, the kestrels were flying around the barn, a green heron flew to the pond, red-winged blackbirds, tree swallows, chickadees, yellow warblers, song sparrows, one lone white-crowned [...]
by Christine Hanrahan I arrived at the FWG at 5:30 this morning, a major effort for someone like me, normally a night owl. I'd hoped to hear a dawn chorus of migrants - warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and so on. That didn't happen. Until the sun came up fully, the only birds singing were robins and [...]
by Christine Hanrahan Eastern Phoebe It was our first real scorcher of a day at 25 degrees C (anything above 15 C is a heat wave to me). I was expecting to see butterflies, even perhaps a few spring azures, as I've seen them elsewhere recently, but no butterflies showed themselves to me. [...]
